Jean Charles Adolphe Alphand

A biography from the Garden and Landscape Guide

Born - Died : 1817 - 1891

French engineer and park designer. He worked with Baron Haussmann on the re-design of Paris and became responsible for many of the parks (including the Bois de Boulogne, the Park Monceau, the Bois de Vincennes, Buttes Chaumont, Montsouris and the gardens of the Champ-de-Mars below the Eifel Tower. His engineering expertise is reflected in the free-flowing 'railway curves' which characterise his designs. Alphand wrote books on Les Promenades de Paris (1867-73) and L'Art des jardins (1886).

Fonte: you tube

This garden has been designed and influenced by Jean Charles Adolphe Alphand:

Vincennes Chateau: Louis VII made a hunting lodge in the woods at Vincennes. Charles V, the Wise One, completed construction of the castle keep. In the seventeenth century Vau built a third royal residence at Vincennes. Viollet-le-Duc restored the keep and the vault. A vast restoration programme was launched in 1988. Part of the medieval castle survives. The Bois de Vincennes has been a hunting park since the 12th century.

Parc des Buttes Chaumont: This may be judged Europe's most romantic public park. Since it was made in a disused quarry, it is also a prime example of how industrial land can be recycled. Adolphe Alphand's plan implies a calm mood, but Buttes Chaumont approaches the drama of a Delacroix painting. There are high cliffs, great trees, a 30 m waterfall and an iron bridge which springs from a cliff face to a pinacle crowned by a temple. In landscape design, as in many of the fine arts, romanticism began in the eighteenth century and reached its zenith in the nineteenth century.

Fonte: Gardenvisit (Texto/fotografias)